Movies: February

[trinityvixen]

I appear to be thwarted in my attempt to talk to the woman I might end up working for today, seeing as her lab has been showing around a prospective post-doc and she's been in meetings and interviewing him all day. It'll have to hold until tomorrow.

Until then! We're done with February and I have a list of movies I've seen. I'm rather disappointed with the rate I'm getting through all of these. I realize a whole week in February was given up to Mass Effect 2, but, really, I need to step up the pace. I've only seen 32 movies so far this year!

Clash of the Titans: The effects don't really rescue the movie, sad to say.

Videodrome: ???

Terminator Salvation: Oh boy. Where do I even begin? This movie left me so uninvolved. I couldn't care less about anybody in the movie. I never, not once, felt like it was a Terminator movie. It was so alien from all the Terminator movies before it, even T3, that I completely missed obvious callbacks to it as being significant. For instance, someone actually said "I'll be back." Five minutes later, while I was being bored by some other random action sequence, I was like, "Oh, it's that line. That Arnie says in movies. Right."

I completely missed I'll be back, you guys. That's how little it felt like a Terminator movie. My reaction can be summed up in one word: apathy. I didn't give a shit. I was not angry enough about what was going on to hate it, even though the story was abusively stupid. I certainly didn't like it, but I felt like I hadn't even seen a movie by the end. It's like I lost time watching this. I could have spaced out for two hours and been no worse for it. It's like watching someone else grind their way through a video game. It was an utter non-entity.

I mean, what else could I add to that to drive home how curiously empty this film felt? The acting? Nonexistent. Christian Bale shouted at things. Sam Worthington slouched around with nary an emotion to be seen. In fact, Sam Worthington was in small what the entire movie was in large: a non-entity. He just slides through the film without affecting the landscape. He's like the person leaving the bank right before the heist begins, except that he was supposed to be the main character. His Big! Heroic! Moment! at the end was not even anti-climactic. It would have to have had tension building up to that moment to be anti-climactic. There was no tension because he just wasn't there. I could have forgiven that of a character playing a robot, but he didn't know that! WTF, McG?

Pathology: Forgettable, if twisted thriller about doctors getting away with murder for fun.

Re-Animator: Oh, Jeffrey Combs! You just always were freaky as shit.

Swamp Thing: Satan is a vegetable superhero and Catwoman is a damsel in distress!

The Wolfman: See my previous laments about this could-have-been-worthy remake.

Let the Right One In: Atmospheric, tender, and subtle--all the things I suspect the American remake won't be.

Ghost Ship: This is worth watching for the credit sequence and the opening five minutes alone, for totally different reasons.

Sands of Oblivion/The Day the Earth Stopped: Eugh.

Night of the Comet: AWESOME! Had to drop a comment on this one because there is something amazing about this schlocky little post-apocalyptic movie. That something is the heroine. When we first meet her, she's currently claiming another spot on the top ten scores of an arcade game. She then proceeds to have sex with a guy she likes--but doesn't love!--joking about how him giving her a cut of his bootlegging deal better not make her a prostitute. 'Cause if it does, she wants to be paid better! ZOMG LOVE HER.

When the apocalypse falls, she doesn't freak out. She goes to get her sister, who also survives, and the two of them continue to be awesome through the whole movie. Their dad was in the army, so they know how to use a variety of weapons. Her sister, the cheerleader, shoots up a car with an automatic weapon and throws a reasonable fit about how she'd prefer to have the less jam-prone Uzi. They're not ninjas, they're just chicks who know guns. IT IS AWESOME.

Mantis in Lace: I believe my Twitter comment was "surprise softcore is surprising!"

Jennifer's Body: Not as grating as I expected, though for every decent line, there were four or five others that just groaned.

Comments

[edgehopper.livejournal.com]

It's like watching someone else grind their way through a video game.

Now, that's not fair to video games. I could be far more entertained watching someone else grind their way through either Bioshock or either Mass Effect than I was watching T:S. cubby_t_bear watched me play through the last 5 hours of Fallout 3 and was quite happy to do so :)

I was actually painting miniatures the first time I watched through it, and when I realized I had no idea what was going on, felt I should watch it again paying attention. It didn't help.

[habiliments.livejournal.com]

One of the worst things about Terminator: Salvation to my mind — and I'll admit, I was ferociously angry about what a waste of, well, EVERYTHING that movie was — was that everyone in it should have been dead in basically the first half hour. The robot wouldn't put its hand on John's shoulder; it would kill me! The robot eel things would have destroyed the people stupid enough to fly their helicopters so low over the river! And so on and so forth. That's my theory for the disconnect: These idiots are all dead anyway, so what am I watching?

[gryphonrose.livejournal.com]

I have a soft spot for Night of the Comet. I own on it on VHS, but I don't think I've ever found it on DVD. I might have to.

Ghost Ship, I agree. And Wolfman. I enjoyed Jennifer's Body, though. [heh]

[viridian.livejournal.com]

Night of the Comet is one of my favorite guilty pleasure movies ever. I used to watch it every single time it was on one of the jillion movie channels we had when we first got satellite at my parents' house.

[ivy03.livejournal.com]

Clash of the Titans: The effects don't really rescue the movie, sad to say.

The old one, right? The point of that movies is that it's utterly ridiculous and the lead can't act for shit. (Speaking of, need to see the new one.) If you're looking for classic Harryhausen, I'd go for Jason and the Argonauts or the Sinbad movies.

[six-demon-bag.livejournal.com]

The new Clash of the Titans? o.O

Haha I enjoyed T:Salvation, but I have trouble not enjoying most of the films I watch on some level or another. Christian Bale was the most annoying part of the movie for me. Oh and that one trailer with the NIN song was better that the movie itself.

Re-Animator! God that's such a classic series and Jeffrey Combs is always fantastic. I heard they're a new one coming out and he's going to be in it. Looking forward to that.

Swamp Thing! Wow, speaking of classic. I haven't seen Swamp Thing or Swamp Thing 2 since I was about twelve. I didn't even know Michelle Pfeiffer was in it. And wait -- which Satan? (too lazy to look it up)

Yours is the first review I've heard of Wolfman. Bummer that it fell short, but I still want to see it. I was pissed when I heard they were remaking it until I read that Del Toro was starring. One of my very favorite actors AND he seemed perfect for the role.

Still need to see Let The Right One In. Are they really doing an American remake? o.O

I've never heard of Night of the Comet, but that sounds amazing! Must see asap.

Haha my 13-year-old niece wanted me to take her to see Jennifer's Body in the theater.

Nice list! I should do something like this sometime...

[arcane-the-sage.livejournal.com]

Clash of the Titans: The effects don't really rescue the movie, sad to say.

I'm sorry but Clockwork Owl FTW! I remember seeing this in theaters and liking it a lot. The effects for the time were pretty damn good. The storyline managed to hold my attention (a rather good feat when I was that age). I hold very little hope that the remake will be any good by comparison.


Videodrome: ???

What? You a problem with meat VHS tapes being shoved into people's abdomens? ^.^

[cbreakr.livejournal.com]

What's wrong with Videodrome? Just let it peel life apart a little bit. IMDB pops up a version for 2011... it'll be terrible and I hope Cronenberg isn't directing (and I'll be damned if I'll let imdb siren-song me into a "membership"). You should watch A History Of Violence if you haven't already.

I felt so bad for the little boy in Let The Right One In. He got nothing but screwed (though he was screwed before that for being in Soviet dominated Sweden in the first place). Ice, ice, ice, vampire, ice, ice, ether, ice, blood, ice, ice, ice,ice... how did people live?

[saturn-shumba.livejournal.com]

MANTIS IN LACE! I really shouldn't like that movie, since it's softcore ridiculousness, but I can't help it. She had scary trips about bananas. She chopped dudes up. I think I read somewhere that when the movie was first released as a sexploitation flick (called "Lila") it flopped. Cue a year later, when they rename it and sell it as a horror film: success! You gotta love that.

I really love Daivd Cronenberg a lot, but his most recent efforts (History of Violence, Eastern Promises) don't really resonate with me the way his body horror flicks of the 70's and 80's do. With Videodrome Cronenberg was starting to delve into a more avant garde type of filmmaking (something he perfected with Naked Lunch) but some of his earlier films like Scanners and The Brood were a bit more coherent. And disgusting (I made the mistake of eating during the finale of The Brood...I will never eat chili again). If you haven't seen it, The Brood is probably the best original body horror film he's done. And if you like Re-Animator, From Beyond is a nice pick too.